"DINGOS: WILD, WISE AND MISUNDERSTOOD" with Kylie Cairns

And with the checkout with the world-famous convention, you can see the checkout with the world-famous convention. The legendary checkout from Shopify, just for the shop on your website, you can see the social media and everywhere. That's the music for your ears. Videos on the rest of the windows, with Shopify, can be helped to help a real help.

Starting with the test of the hotel, I'm an old promonat of Shopify.org/regard. If you live in Australia or visit Australia, you've traveled around the country more than likely you had a chance to see a dingo. But what do you really know about them?

“Did you know that there's a dingo fence in Australia that's about 3500 miles long?”

That's right, 3500 miles long. And today's episode Kylie Caron's challenge, when she's a dingo conservationist and educator, she's focused on rescue and rehabilitation of these wild canines. And we talk really cool things that are all dingo. These medium sized dogs are highly intelligent and they're very independent.

Now, you can't just go and adopt a dingo pup. They're really like the wild and, by the way, me too. Ecologically, they're really, really important. And they control the fox and ferrocat population in Australia, and so much more.

Now, the first nations people revered them is protectors and companions.

Dingo's are part of the land and their culture, and we get into their history. They're importants and the misconception of these really, really interesting canines. Did you know that Dingo's really don't bark that much? They prefer the howl.

“So, like the dingo, I think you will be hauling to everyone about how cool Kylie is.”

And you'll be a bit more wild now as you have now met Vadinka. We're going to talk about something and I've been going to talk a long time. Everybody calls me Dingo, we're going to talk about a dingo. So we're just going there. Welcome to show.

How are you doing today? I'm really excited to be here. I'm really good. I'm actually more excited for you to be here and there, and I know you're not that excited to be. It's stuck to me.

But as I always tell everybody my start that's saying, what I'd love to do is I want to talk about you.

Because I want the audience to get to know you. You're background and how we got the dingo's. And all that. So let's just talk about you growing up, how you became, you know, this wild dog fox wolf. I know it's a dog, but we're going to get into that too.

But how you got to where you're going and this is, this is that fun. So I mean, I grew up in the US, which I think you might be able to tell from my voice. And I was going there. Yeah, and I moved to Australia in 1998 when I was around 11. And I just love wildlife.

I love animals. I love dogs. I have pet dogs. I've had dogs. My whole life.

So when it came to, you know, finding a career, it had to be something about animals. But I couldn't be a vet. I didn't get high enough marks in high school. So I went into science. And I just love it.

I love, like, being able to spend my day in my time answering questions and investigating things. So that became my passion. And I kind of fell into studying dingo's. Because I wanted to do something about dogs. But I knew a guy who worked in a lab next to me when I was doing uni that worked on dingo's.

And the opportunity came up to work with him. So I was like, well, dingo's are kind of like dogs. So I guess that would be similar. And I guess the rest is history. You know, I just, I just became so.

Impassioned with studying them and learning more about them and also doing what I can to help with their conservation and Australia. I think they're a really misunderstood animal.

“And that's why I really want to get into.”

But here's a question. I told you I was going to bounce. Here's a question. It has nothing to do with animals. Because you're.

You're an American Australian. So yeah. Do you like vet your might? I just want to.

So when I first moved to Australia, I think I had to try it and I was it was disgusting.

So my kids will like they love it. They'll like slather it on their sandwiches and, you know, have it on crumpets and stuff. My daughter had it on her crumpets this morning. But I can have it, but it has to be in various specific circumstances. So only with butter on toast with cheese.

That's it. No plain red wine.

Well, first of all, it looks like axle grease.

Number one. Yeah. I remember the very.

“So I think I told you I played rugby for the US team.”

So I spent a lot of time down there. And I remember the very first time I saw it was action and airplane. It was part of this pack. I'm wondering the thing, what is this terrible thing? And I have a lot, you know, I have really, really lots of Australian friends.

And everybody down there loves that. I cannot figure out. I know it's got protein.

They did, they did the best marketing plan of any companies ever done.

Because when you look at that stuff, it's like, they're got a chance in the world. I never had that again. I tried it. That was good. I wonder if it's like the British thing.

Because like British people have marmine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the leftover products are making some sort of yeast thing from my beer.

Yeah.

“Now, like, what can we turn this bottom of the barrel stuff into?”

Oh, bread. I think people that actually eat that veggie-mite stuff are actually our dingos. But anyways, that's me. But let's talk dingos. So let's talk about their history.

I know they've been there for a long time. And it's really their whole story. The more I was doing my homework for this thing.

It's pretty amazing that, you know, and get into their story and how they became an apex,

which is unbelievable to me. Apex Predator, when you think about where they had started and when they did it. So let's, you're the chef. Tell us, give us a beer. All right.

Well, I mean, I think something that people have to understand about Australia before we get into dingos is that we're quite a unique continent. Most of our animals, most of our mammals, are marsupials. So they have pouch babies instead of giving birth to older young, like placental. So that's quite unique. And we had quite a lot of large predators that were marsupials.

So marsupial lions, marsupial tigery things, giant marsupial lions. Yeah, well, they were not cats, but they were like, they vaguely looked like cats.

“So that's what the people called them, you know, we discovered that.”

But they haven't been, those haven't been present on the Australian continent for, you know, more than 50,000 years. Yeah, that's the tiger, which had tiger that's the one that everybody's sight thinking. So we have the Loch Ness tiger. The Tasmanian tiger, but that was, that was, that was still present when Europeans came to Australia. Only in Tasmania though.

But like, they were much, much larger mammalian predators, but they all kind of went extinct, like, 50, 40,000 years ago. And so we had this large continent with lots of prey, but not very many predators left. And so by the time Dingo's came to Australia, there was like this open landscape for them to enter into and then fulfill that role of apex or top predator. And, and, and that's probably why they've been so successful is because there wasn't anything else in that same like size or type that they were competing again.

It was like they had an open niche. Right. And so when they got there and when I again, I, my reading in comprehension levels here's we very low. But anyway, I was reading. So when they came from Southeast Asia, probably China or somewhere like that is what they're saying. I think three to 5,000 years ago is that roughly right. So when we try to think about when Dingo's came to Australia, I think it's a very open ended question still because there were no recorded histories right at that point in time to know exactly where they came from.

So what we can get some information about is looking at the fossil record and also using ancient DNA or genetics to sort of unravel that. So from the fossils, we know that the oldest fossil that we have that we found is about three and a half thousand years old and that was found in the far south west part of the continent. So basically very, very far away from where Dingo's would have potentially entered Australia. So that tells us that Dingo's were certainly present and spread across Australia by three and a half thousand years ago.

And then when we study the genetics, that can tell us a little bit more about where they came and more information about when they might have split off from other came into our dogs.

So at that point in time Dingo's became their own thing, their own lineage and then they moved through the island down into Australia through Asia.

But their ancestor came from Asia. The original dog dog, but there were different types of dog dogs, right? There were Asian dogs and then there were Eurasian or Western dogs. And Dingo's come from that Eastern Asian dog type, not the Western Eurasian ones. So if you think about most of the dogs we have today, you know like German Shepherd's Labrador's Poodles, any of those, they are all mostly from that Western dog type that's been very successful and heavily domesticated by people.

Whereas Dingo's came from this different Asian type of dog that really only exists today in these village dogs that we see in through Southeast Asia.

Hey, one thing I read was that, you know, most people think that as time's gone on that there are no pure Dingo's weapons, there still are some apparently, right? Which I think really cool.

“Yeah, so that's what most of my research is about actually about hybridization, hybridization.”

Between dogs and Dingo's in the landscape. So in the 90s we were studying hybridization in Dingo's using, you know, at the time cutting edge DNA technology.

But it used between 15 and 23 DNA markers. I don't know that makes sense to you, but it basically is like 23 bits across the genome that we could use to look at.

23 in me. 23 in me. Yeah.

“So that's what we were using. And when we used that method, we found evidence that there was a lot of hybridization going on. In fact, there was some suggestion that in Eastern Australia.”

So the part where most people live now, like I live, New South Wales, Sydney, that sort of area, that there were very few Dingo's left, like 1% of the population were pure or something like that. However, something that frequently gets misunderstood is that we did know that there was still plenty of Dingo's in central Australia and like Western and Northern Australia. It's just really in that Eastern Southern part of Australia that we were worried about hybridization. Anyway, fast forward 20, 25 years and my research, you know, was being carried out. And we instead of looking at only 23 markers, we looked at 195,000 DNA markers for genome.

So like a huge change. And that's just because genetics technology has come along so far. And what we found instead is that while there is some gene flow or mixing between Dingo's and dogs, it's far less common than we thought. So instead of it being like 1% of the population being, you know, pure, it's more like 70 to 80% of the population being pure, depending on where you are. And that the place is where there is mixing at the moment between Dingo's and dogs, it's really in areas where the Dingo's are being controlled or killed to manage their impacts on livestock.

“I think it's for me, at least, because being here in the States, everybody knows what a Dingo is. It's amazing because they're really, are they only in Australia and Tasmania as well, which is part of you guys, but it's only on just on you.”

Only on the mainland of Australia, which is pretty wild, how well known they are. If you really think about it. I mean, it's there, I mean, they're a wild dog at some level and we can get into specifically what they are. But the fact that they're so well known, it's interesting and I'm not quite sure why that is if you really think about it, because there's so many other weird dog things out there that you just don't know about. I'm really sorry, if you can hear dogs growling in the background, dogs are fighting. My dog has to be part of every show that I'm on. They're putting on a wild dog show.

I've got to be the background. That's hilarious. I think you were asking about why there's a well known. And I think in any country, the predators become something that's really visual and important to a lot of human communities.

So they became something that we told a lot of stories about and we made, you know, that we communicated a lot about because we were fearful of them.

“So I think that when people came to Australia, Dingo's were something that we talked a lot about.”

You know, they were public enemy number one for a lot of, you know, when Europeans came here because they killed sheep. And so there was a lot of attention on getting rid of them and that has led to, you know, a lot of discussion about them. Also, unfortunately, they've gotten a bad rap for a couple of incidents that have happened that have gone global media, like, for example, the Dingo that may have taken the baby as Arya Chamberlain.

Yeah, everybody always cares about it.

Yeah, it's kind of a debunk a lot that they don't know for sure, still, right? I mean, I think it's clear that it wasn't the mother who killed her baby. And it is quite likely that a Dingo was involved in some way. Yeah, exactly. So I think that's really explains why they're so well known.

And I think a lot of Australians consider Dingo's to be a very important Australian animal.

And we're quite proud of them in many ways, but at the same time, they have this dual nature where they also are not not valued on agricultural land.

Obviously, same as well as our priorities. Well, by the one, that's, that's what, and again, this will take us off track, but it's on the same subject.

“So, you know, when I think about it, when I was doing my homework, because they're important to the environment and ecological balance, right?”

It's similar to when they got rid of all the wolves and Yellowstone. And then all of a sudden, when they brought them back, the environment came back because they were doing the main reason they were getting rid of them is to be again for really for people grazing cattle on things like that. It was a big portion of that, right?

And, you know, when I started looking into this, and I guess we should get into it.

The reason why they're considered where they balance everything out is there. The thing I ask you about that is the furrow catch in the fog, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah, is that many furrow catch in Australia? Every time I read about furrow catch in Australia, and I've been there, I don't see a bunch of cats running away. Oh, yeah, there's a lot of furrow cats in the bush.

Really? But they're not, you wouldn't see them generally walking around because they're quite a elusive, you know, predator.

“And I think that's one of the problems again when I was talking about dingas and how they came here and they went that many predators,”

how they successfully then, you know, became so enmeshed in the environment. At the same time, that also has contributed to the success of foxes and cats, you know, spreading into the environment. There was less competition with other predators. They had dingos, of course, but very quickly, your pain started suppressing dingos. And that allowed these smaller predators to, you know, be more successful in spreading.

Right? You know, they were also successful just because there was so much such productive environments, lots of prey available. And because I'll low a lot of those prey animals, you know, the little cute Australian marsupials. They were just not adapted to the types of predators like foxes and cats on the way that they hunt because they didn't evolve with them. And so they're naive to them. They don't, like, they're not, they don't have that inherent ingrained behavior to avoid cats and foxes in the same way that they do to like,

calls, which is our native small marsupial carnivore. And so they just don't, they don't recognize the sign that a fox or a cat is there. And so they don't respond appropriately and that makes them vulnerable. And so foxes and cats have been very successful at spreading into the environment all across the environment and have caused many species of reptile and birds and mammals to go extinct since they're coming. But when they're, when they're being, because we can talk into about the Dingo wall and I was a fence or whatever, and the, and the farm, it's always the cattle guys, right, they're always fighting against these guys for the most, but I got sheep as well, too.

And then, and then it's also that they help keep the, the kangaroos from destroying the land, right, too, is that what they're doing. Yeah. So, I mean, we've done a lot of ecological study about the, you know, the role of Dingo's in the environment. Some of that has been really helped unfortunately by the presence of this barrier fence that we have that's the largest human-made structure in the world. It's over 5,000 kilometers long and it runs from the coast in Queensland all the way down to the coast in South Australia and it basically a fence, you know, 1.5 meters high in most places, sometimes it's.

But, but talk about the fence real quick, those 1880 that they did in the 1800s today, that late 1800s, right? Well, they started it. I wouldn't have been like completed. I don't think.

“And I think it originally started as a rabbit proof fence to try to stop the spread of rabbits and then they were like, oh, let's, let's, we'll call it the Dingo proof fence now, so the thing because the Dingo is of a bigger enemy.”

But anyway, we have this barrier fence and it's been useful to scientists because we can then study the environment on either sides of the fence. It basically has lots of Dingo's versus not very many Dingo's and we can look at these broad patterns about, you know, the different types of prey animals that are persisting in different environments and also types of plans or the shape of the landscape. And we found that the removal of Dingo, or, I haven't, but scientists have found that the removal of Dingo's from the landscape has been so pervasively affecting the environment that it's even changed things like the shape of sand dunes.

And that's because when we've removed Dingo's from the landscape, we have more kangaroos, which is means that they eat more and different types of plans.

And that changes the way that the sand moves obviously if there's more or less, you know, root structure holding the sand in or whatever that changes the way the sand moves, so it changes the shape and the structure of those sand dunes. So, you know, it's really amazing that we can study these things, but from it, we also have learned how important Dingo's are to making sure that our Australian ecosystems are resilient and diverse into the future. Because we can see from some of these studies that removing Dingo's can actually benefit boxes and cats.

And that's because, you know, you generally have a larger predator will suppress the smaller predator, particularly, you know, a large canad, like a Dingo will suppress a smaller canad, like a fox or in North America, that would be wolves, suppressing coyotes, etc. And so when you remove that top predator, you remove that suppression, and so you may have an increased amount of foxes or cats in the landscape, and that's obviously detrimental to, you know, smaller prey items or little musupials and rodents.

The other way that they impact this is that when there's more Dingo's, there's less kangaroos, and then there's less herbivory, and so there's more like plant structure or habitat for these small rodents and marsupials, etc. for hiding from foxes and cats. And so there's sort of multiple ways that Dingo's shaped the environment that can be beneficial to, you know, some of those animals that we really want to preserve in the environment that foxes and cats are suppressed, you know, causing to go into extinction.

And we'll be right back.

“As a pet lover, did you know your pet can benefit from the incredible healing power of stem cell therapy?”

Prep therapy offers a groundbreaking solution taken right from your pet's own blood, say goodbye to joint pain, arthritis, kidney and liver conditions, and more. When they got rid of the wolves and yellowstone, the crazy thing, it's this cascading event, right, which is exactly what we're talking about. And so what happened was, is the cattle started going into the rivers, which got ruined the banks, but also affected the fish. I mean, it just keeps going and going and going and going, which is the same thing here, even though they weren't necessarily, I guess at this point, they would be considered native of Australia, but they balanced the system.

But then in the day, when Americans, when Americans, when humans get involved, we always sit and try to fix everything, but then they were always breaking things for the most part of my mind.

“I think we often think that we know how things work better than we actually do, and so we end up, we're like, we're fixing it.”

We're making it better by removing predators, but that creates other problems that we haven't appreciated, and then we just break kind of break the system.

We're changing it again. That might be changing it back closer to what it was, but we can't, we can't fix things back and put it back to a baseline, that's not how the ecology or biology works.

“So yeah, I mean, it is like, we know from studying the ecology of Dingo, that they are really important for the environment, and they help balance, balance ecosystems.”

So having them in places mean that we have more, more stupials, we have more burrs, we have more reptiles, and those populations are holding on better when we have Dingo's. And when we remove them, even if that benefits agriculture, it's going to have a negative consequence for, you know, the natural environment.

And so it's that really difficult balance of what do we do, because the environment rarely gets given a dollar value.

And so it's not valued or preserved in the same way that we do agriculture, and I'm not saying that agriculture is not important, you know, people need to eat things. But we can change the way that we're talking about it and managing that, so that we're trying to protect both things rather than giving one only the benefit. Well, generally when you're talking about when you talk about agriculture, you're talking about people that more money, and they get to control a networks where, you know, they get to money with the government.

So don't know, we need your rid of these things, because these guys are making more money on that thing, and without looking at the bigger picture, and and by the way, not bad mouth and anybody, but the reality is it's just what the reality is, you know, and how it is. So let's, let's do this, and I want to keep on on this balance thing, but I'm going to talk a little bit about the Dingo specifically, so people, even we seem pictures of it, we talk about how big they are and that kind of thing. And I also want to talk about how important they are to the indigenous culture that originates area, and I know you spent a lot of time with him, so let's talk about you out in the fields hanging out with you and your Dingo buddies.

Well, I mean, to profess this, I am a lab scientist, most of my work is in the lab, and I, you know, get people send me various samples in the mail, and then I do DNA stuff on them. Let's stop, it sounds very technical. So most of my days are spent interacting with Dingo's in an unpleasant way, in the sense that I would, I get sent, you know, bits of dead Dingo in the mail or blood or, you know, mousewalks. Sometimes, but I am very privileged because of my having worked in the field for a very long time and having talked to so many people that I get invited to go on field trips, where we do, you know, actual hands on stuff about Dingo's, as well as visiting sanctuary, so I'm very privileged that I've actually met quite a lot of Dingo's now.

I've also been involved in some field work, so I visit this sanctuary in Melbourne, so down in Victoria, in the far south east part of Australia. And I visit a number of Dingo's there, one of my favorite ones is Wondy, who has a book written about him, and he's got a very interesting story where he was rescued from the bush after being dropped into some of these backyard probably by a eagle or owl. That sometimes eat Dingo comes, and people weren't sure where he was at the time. They thought he might have been a fox or a feral dog, and as soon as people who knew what Dingo's looked like, sort of picture of him, we were like, you know, that's a Dingo puppy.

“But at the time, when Wondy was found, this was in 2019, I think, people thought that Dingo's were extremely rare in the bush in Victoria.”

We thought that less than 1% of the animal in the wild dogs in the bush were actually Dingo's. So, anyway, he got sent to a sanctuary, and I did a test of him, and we found that he was, in fact, a Dingo, with no evidence of recent dog ancestry. And his story went viral, like hundreds of thousands of people have heard about Wondy, he's got his own book, he's famous, you know, but like I knew him before he was famous, so I feel very special.

And I think they're truly amazing when you sit in a space with Dingo, he's like, they don't behave in the same way as dogs.

“I think a lot of people see them in the mirror, like, oh, you know, my dog is the same as that, they behave in the same way, that's, that's it, but they don't behave in the same way they are so intelligent.”

You know, I haven't personally seen them because I don't have a Dingo, but they're great at a problem solving, which can be very challenging for people who have pet Dingo's or who work in sanctuaries with them.

So you have to have very special locking systems often. There's one Dingo I know named Azi, who used to be able to figure out how to open up the fridge, so she would break herself out of her crate when she was traveling with people.

To do educational things and she would break herself out of her crate, and then she would go to the fridge to see what food she could get from the fridge.

They have what some Dingo's also there that they've done, like, intelligence test, basically, where they give them a puzzle, a three-part puzzle where they have to, you know, pull a bit and then push a bit and then flip something open to get a treat. And it's clear, so they can see sort of how it works. Anyway, there's this one Dingo that saw this puzzle and she solved it in 30 seconds. And then she got given it a second time and she, like, pre-opened it all so that all she had to do was pull the last bit and then treat just dropped out.

So she worked out the back of it. So they're so incredibly intelligent. And that's really important for them because they have to live in the environment and figure out how to catch food and find water in a very difficult environment. Like, we have a lot of challenging ecosystems from desert to, you know, high mountain temperate sort of situations as well as the tropics.

So yeah, they're truly amazing animals. They're also really beautiful. Okay, I love watching them move because they're so graceful.

And when they like run along the beach, you can see the difference in the way that they move compared to dogs. So they will do a single tracking, though, where they're front, their back feet will go into their front pop range. So it looks like there's two pop prints moving along, whereas dogs tend to have four pop prints because they're back ends tend to be different wids to their front ends, so they make four pop prints. So anyway, they just move with such a grace when they're, when they're running, I just love watching them.

Do you think they evolved just to put from a predator standpoint to be, so people, you know, whoever their predator is there, I don't know, it's a good mother dragon or some crazy thing in on me, you guys have down there.

“But I wonder if that's what they did. Are you familiar with the free ranging dog project?”

Yes, in India in Morocco.

Morocco, okay. That's probably a number of them. Yeah, I'm sure. And there were based, I mean, it's a really interesting thing. And you know, and I always, the thing that always, I always think about when we're, when I do more talking about it, but I still think about it is. It's a dog happy or being free range, in which in other words, it's cruising around doing whatever or live being domesticized and all that. But one of the things that they do when they're watching and they're doing the study with these dogs is figuring how fast they can open up containers of food in there. And these dogs end to figure out really fast because they're, they're not being handed food all the time. So they know how to get that really kind of stuff to you.

“Yeah, yeah. I think, so they've, they basically designed a whole bunch of experiments or puzzles that they give dogs and they give wolves and they give coyotes and, you know, of range of animals.”

And they give them to dingos as well. And dingos tend to fall more similarly in their abilities to solve problems as like wolves or coyotes. So like a wild animal that really needs to think for themselves, whereas when they give those same sort of tasks or puzzles to most domestic dogs, I don't know if they've been repeatedly village dog, but that will be super interesting. The domestic dogs tend to look at the person or the people to be like, can you help me solve this, like open open that for me?

You're going to make it. Yeah. So yeah, I think that that is a characteristic of these wild animals that have evolved and continued living in the wild without relying on humans. They have to rely on themselves or each other.

“And that has meant that they haven't, I guess, become more dumb down because the way I think about it is domestic dogs have been created by humans through selection and breeding.”

To create the perfect companions and, you know, poochers. You know, they're shaped to rely on us and fit into our homes and do the jobs that we want them to do. And, you know, that has had really big impacts on dogs. For example, dogs that have lived with humans for thousands of years have now adapted to the fact that we often see them food that they wouldn't have naturally evolved to eat like grains.

So dogs have like many, many copies of these genes that can, you know, help them with carbohydrates, dingos and wolves only have, you know, the normal one gene of the can cope with it.

That's just an example of how the way humans have shaped dogs and to be in great for us, but we've changed then their ability to, you know, live in the environment in the same way. Well, you know, it kind of reminds me of because they have to be smart. It's like us, right? So, you, math. Everybody uses a calculator now or the phone to add things and it's, they're capable of doing it, but it's, it's almost laziness at some level, but yeah.

“It's already there. And so if I'm a domestic dog, if you're going to hand me food, I'm going to eat it. Yeah, I don't have to go out and something and do why would I do that?”

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, you know, like the typical like puppy dog eyes, you know, where dogs will like stare into your, into your eyes and you know, they have, like there's been structural changes to the muscles around their eyes to allow them to. Like, like make that puppy dog eye look. That's obviously been successful, you know, furthering their relationship with humans and, you know, like, for example, gazing where dogs will look into humans eyes to go that report or relationship. Dogs will do that for, you know, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, whatever. Dingo's the maximum that a, that a dingo would gaze into somebody's eyes is about six seconds, whereas wolves and codies like they rarely gaze into a person's eyes at all.

Yeah, that's just not on their repertoire. So, Dingo's are kind of like that intermediate. Yeah, they're trying to figure out who they are.

Yeah, and that probably goes back to their ancestors being some sort of early dog that may have had some relationship with humans, but certainly not the type of relationship that our dogs today have, you know, it's unlikely that the ancestors of Dingo's was completely reliant on humans, maybe they lived alongside them in some way or used them for a food resource, you know, went to their dump or whatever and got food. They didn't, they went controlled and like bread left the way domestic dogs are and even free-ranging dogs that we have in Asia, those animals are still reliant on people. I think a lot of people may be going to appreciate this, but they're reliant on that.

They're exactly their reliant on living in that human landscape that we've created, and they're not very successful at moving into the wild.

And we have all these dogs moving out in the wild, right? And a lot of people think that there's some of those dogs are pet dogs that have gone into the bush, you know, like border collies and labor doors and copies are there often the bush and living their life. But when we've studied this by doing DNA tests of animals caught in trapping programs across Australia, we've tested like over 5,000 animals up from this, less than 1% so it's like 31 animals out of that 5,000 were actually federal dogs. So there's just no evidence that dogs are successful at living. Yeah, they're just not successful at living in the bush. And that's probably because of the harshness of the environment in Australia, you know, we have high temperatures in many places or temperature extremes. So it might be very cold during the winter.

“There's limited water resources in many places. And so, you know, you really have to know how to had a hunt and prey on things. And I think domestic dogs are just not as successful.”

They might be successful at living, but then the key part is to make a population is you have to breed. And I think something that put thing goes apart from domestic dogs that maybe you don't know about is that they only breed once a year seasonally. And domestic domestic dogs will breed twice a year and it's everything around here. Yeah, every time they're in here and they're mostly going to eat twice a year, but it's not seasonal, like they kind of just go into heat more randomly throughout the year. And that's because there's no reason for them to restrict their breeding anymore because humans have food.

And they give them their food, so they can breed them, you know, more frequently, whereas Dingo's can't do that.

“Yeah, I'd be involved to be able to do that. I think that's what I did. People kept giving me the kill and I said, okay, I guess I'm going to have to be involved to be able to kill.”

I get it. That's what it was. There you go. I get it. I understand. I've been one of those guys. What? I want to talk about the aborigini and what they call dream time and all that kind of stuff too, because I've fascinated by

You know, any person I've ever met that's part of the Arab origin. I've just had such a great time talking to him and hanging out with him. Because tradition and all this stuff that goes along with that.

Yeah, so I want to say I'm not first nation, so I don't want to...

Well, me either. I'll talk generally about it, but I wouldn't give away any specific stories because those are not mine to give. Yeah, and I appreciate that. Yeah, but Dingo's are really important to many indigenous or First Nations people in Australia. They feature in their song lines or their dream stories, which is sort of like them mythology sort of. Right. That explains how they perceive the landscape and how the landscape was created in their spirituality or their custom culture.

So they're really important. They're also viewed as a totem animal from many different indigenous cultures in Australia.

“And I mean, I think that's a key point is there's many different indigenous peoples in Australia.”

So there's not just one indigenous type or person. There's many different groups around Australia and they have different languages. And so they may view Dingo's in different ways or have different stories about how about them and how they may have played a role in human culture or in the landscape or in creating the environment. Those sorts of things. There are also viewed as kin by many indigenous peoples. Really, actually like the capability. Yeah, and that can be really challenging then because when we talk about Dingo's in the landscape today,

a lot of Dingo's are being controlled, which is a, you know, pleasant way of saying we kill them in places and so to indigenous people that can be really traumatizing because we're talking about or actually killing. He thinks that they would consider kin. And I think that's something that doesn't get fully appreciated and discussed often in Australia when we're talking about managing them. We don't necessarily talk about the impact that that has on first nations people because we just maybe some of us don't have the same connection with our culture that they do and so we don't value it. And I think that's wrong.

And I think we really do need to listen to more First Nations people about their views on Dingo's and what they want done for Dingo's on their country in there, you know.

“Absolutely, you should be. Yeah, that's why I'm thinking about, I did an episode with on the wild buffalo the last wild buffalo in Yellowstone.”

And because that's when I had four guests on and one was a native American and and he would talk about his ancestors, which were at first I didn't understand what he was saying, but he was talking about the buffalo. You know, because it's that important to him and it's really important to their culture, their revered and all that kind of stuff too. Yeah, often many different indigenous peoples had different words for wild Dingo's and Camp Dingo's. So whilst most Dingo's lived in the wild in the bush, some people did take Dingo's from the bush has pops and then rear them as companion animals in their camps or in their, you know, homes.

And that's something that some people misinterpret it as being domestication and that's not to undervalue that that relationship that Dingo's had with people. They were a key part of camp, they often helped women go hunting, they helped protect, you know, the home areas and protect children. So they were really key part and and clearly they were valued because there are burials as well where indigenous people have buried Dingo's by themselves or with people. So it shows that they're really deeply ingrained cultural part of that's nations peoples.

“But I think it's critical to understand as well that just because some Dingo's lived with people does not mean that all Dingo's lived with people.”

And I think that first nations people recognize that as well, you know, they have these different words for them.

And something that is interesting about that is that the word Dingo comes from an indigenous word from Sydney where the first white colonists came. And they were being, they were heard people talking about the camp Dingo's as Tingo's. And so that's the word that that we started using instead of Tingo, we call them Dingo. But, but it's kind of wrong because that word was more referring to camp Dingo's when, you know, now we use that word to refer to all Dingo's.

[Music] And we'll be right back.

“As a pet lover, did you know your pet can benefit from the incredible healing power of stem cell therapy?”

Rep therapy offers a groundbreaking solution taken right from your pet's own blood,

say goodbye to joint pain, arthritis, kidney and liver conditions and more. They'll experience faster recovery, increased vitality, and extended quality of life without the need for surgery or harmful drugs. Put the wag back in their tail and discover prep therapy today at prepvet.com. Save 10% with promo code for a real podcast covered by most pet insurance. So let's touch on because you've spent a lot of time understanding them.

Let's talk about the Dingo wars with, you know, the people that are calling and doing all that stuff that they're doing to get rid of them.

Because I know that, you know, they just had the density of the beads, but the girl probably drown is what they're assuming, but they were there and they were being animals. But let's talk a little bit about the Dingo wars and how, I guess it's about education, really people understand that it's not, and I guess they've really had a really bad PR company forum for a long time. They need a better PR company, shall I?

“They have had a bad PR company and it's been deliberate, I think, is one of the key things that we've learned.”

So, you know, Australia, a lot of times the government will use two different words to talk about Dingo's, depending on what we're talking about. So, if we're talking about conservation and we're talking about environment and places where Dingo's can be Dingo's, we will use the word Dingo. But if we're talking about managing them or killing them, then the government tends to use the words while dog to refer to them. Fair old wild dogs. Wild dogs.

And that language has been really widespread in all levels of government and the community for long periods of time. I think it really started to become more popular to refer to Dingo's as wild dogs in the 1980s. And now you would be hard pressed to look at a government website and not find the word well dog, particularly if you're on like an agricultural department website.

“And I think that that has led to a level of misunderstanding from the general public and you know, more globally as well about what the animals in the wild actually are.”

And so we can have a little bit of a history talk, so why did we start talking about wild dogs? It was because people became concerned about hybridization happening between Dingo's and dogs. And we had that concern because there was this idea that hybrids or the offspring of you know, Dingo and the dog breeders together would be bigger. They would be more aggressive, they would be smarter, and they would be more likely to kill more livestock. And so we definitely didn't want them.

And then there was another part to that, you know, why rationale, which was that if we allow hybridization to be happening and it's something that's happening.

Then it would be very bad for Dingo's because it's going to basically breed them into extinction and we'll have no Dingo's left.

So in the 80s is when we first started having scientists really looking at this, you know, from the 70s to the 80s and we started by looking at their skulls. So we would get the skulls from Dingo's often that required people to go out and trapped Dingo's kill them and then they would chop their heads off and take them back to the lab where they would boil them down and then measure the bones. So it wasn't very effective for conservation breeding because we had to breed the blitters of pups and then after it was all done cut the head off and send the Dingo up to the lab to get it tested.

Hopefully after it had been lived a long life. Anyway, so the skull morphology studies they really started to show that in eastern and southern Australia, the Dingo's were different than the Dingo's in the desert and in northern Australia. And so the explanation for that at the time was that this is evidence of hybridization, this is evidence of the pervasive mixing of dogs into the wild Dingo's. And then we had in the 90s the genetic revolution where scientists started getting access to all of these core genetics tools and we could study the DNA and so one of my PhD supervisors who sadly passed away in 2011, he was the person who first brought this DNA study to Dingo's.

And he tested Dingo's in the wild and he also had like a set of captive Dingo's that he uses a reference population to be like, this is what you need to look like genetically to be a Dingo.

So we tested that and he developed this DNA test that we then used for decades to study Dingo's around the country to look at hybridization and we thought that we thought from that work that hybridization was really rampant, particularly in eastern Australia where.

“There was a lot of concern also about Dingo's being present because that's where we have our prime sheep country which is where we we have the most amount of livestock was then presumably.”

So anyway this this concern about hybridization is what has led to this communication about wild dogs right because.

Usually this rationale put forward that well the animals in the wild are not really Dingo's anymore or most of them are not thing there's any more there these you know hybrids and so we shouldn't call them Dingo's we should call them wild dogs so that we're being more specific about what they are you know and so that people it's clear that we're not just killing Dingo's we're killing federal dogs and hybrids which we don't want to have right. But that language is then assisted and I think it's really troubling because most of the general public does not realize that Dingo's are targeted in lethal control programs they think that there's different animals being killed while dogs being killed but Dingo's are being protected and there's this perception or idea that.

“In national parks Dingo's are native animals so they're protected. But wild dogs are controlled. And that's a problem because actually what's happening in national parks is wild dogs are controlled but the definition of wild dog includes Dingo's.”

So we are of course killing Dingo's in our national parks in places where they should be protected is the native. Yeah, they just have to get terrible PR because you know it's funny and terrible.

Well, you know how here in the US we have the wild horses right and there's a horse meat trade and so what the cattle ranchers don't want the horses on their property. So the government has come up with a term instead of wild dog they're feral horses. They're the same horse as the wild horses. But if you hear feral horses feral denotes something that doesn't sound that good right and it's all the way they marketed the thing. And I don't know to see how you consider and because the horses are running on the pasture land and they get the ranchers get subsidies from the government so they don't like this the same idea it's the same you got the dogs we got the horse problem it's the same same idea.

I mean we we do have a feral horse problem too. In some parts of in part, something to let's really and they've done some major calls as a result of having the feral courses in the national park.

You know Australia does have a feral animal problem and I guess that's one of the issues then is that Dingo's kind of straddled this area between native and non-native. Very clearly their ancestors came from outside of Australia so by some really strict scientific definitions they're not native right because because their ancestors came from outside. But you know in a changing world where we know things are being moved around by humans deliberately or accidentally and in the circumstances where this happened thousands of years ago and Dingo's have then become integrated into the environment.

You know it's not really the same thing as a fox being brought by Europeans 200 years ago, you know and Dingo's now have that role in the ecosystem and we didn't have another large predator that was filling that role at the time either.

“I think it's just talk about the humans that are in Australia except for the indigenous people are they natives because they're really nice.”

It's very, it's there's a political thing in Australia about boat people right because there's issues with people coming to Australia by boat seeking refugees status now I'm not I'm right don't want to make a political statement about that but what I would say is it's awfully funny for the Europeans to have a problem with it. When we're the original boat people we came in and we effectively wanted to push the indigenous people out of their country we told them that it was Taron Ellis like they didn't have they weren't they weren't the landowners and we effectively proceeded to push them out and do horrific things to them and we did horrific things to their dogs as well which is Dingo's you know.

Part of that process of pushing people off the land also man targeting Dingo's because we didn't want Dingo's in places where we were putting our very precious sheep that we just shipped all the way from you know Britain we wanted to protect those and Australia is really unique because if we go back to that very few predators issue.

It was really kind of groundbreaking I guess for Europeans to realize that that like you know here was a landscape that was so productive had never had.

It's like livestock on it and we could put our sheep out in and paddocks that would go great we could you know use them for me and then the wool was exceptionally valuable as well after certain time point and basically Australia's economy was built off the back of sheep and that's one of the reasons why sheep are so important and agriculture is so important in Australia historically. Is that a lot of our economy and our success as a nation has been built off the back of the value of wool and therefore the value of protecting sheep from Dingo's so we had you know industrial scale.

Little control programs carried out to kill Dingo's we have had baiting programs basically since Europeans came and developed good poisons for killing men so we used to use strict nine which is a horrifically inhumane poison in some states we are still allowed to use strict nine to kill Dingo's in certain circumstances. And then we do we got access to 1080 which is another poison that's very rarely used outside of Australia or New Zealand. And we use that in baits to control Dingo's via and chopping them out of airplanes over national parks and sometimes public land.

Private land we also use those same baits to do groundbreaking where you know you would walk along the land or whatever and put them out.

And then we also have bounties where we pay money for people handing in scalps.

“Yeah, this has been going on for generations in Australia and I think.”

It's really troubling as a scientist studying them because we know now that they are Dingo's there's not as much hybridization as we thought. And the hybridization that is there is probably because Dingo's are being threatened and challenged by this you know this amount of leave a control that is increasing the amount of hybridization that might happen. And also restricting their ability to purge or get rid of these dog genes went between the population. That's a really complex thing I know I'm just kind of thrown in there we can talk about it.

I think I mean it's fascinating you know I was sitting where it's thinking talking you live in two countries where they all started with criminals. Yes. Yes.

“We're going to have indigenous people of both countries.”

Yeah, yeah, no I know it's not it's not a great.

Checker. Yeah. I don't know if I want sometimes I like to claim my Australian heritage because my dad is Australian although he actually is British and immigrated to Australia when he was 13 so I'm more correctly I would be British American. But I like to claim my Australian heritage heritage question.

I'm not I but I'm not a panel colony Australian. I guarantee my family some people call you for sure. But you know I don't know that I've ever met in Australian and I like so you're in a great place as far as I wish. Oh, that's nice. So when I said when we brought up is something else we haven't brought up so you can think of right now.

I mean so we haven't really talked about. I guess dingos and a trip to humans.

“I think that there's been a lot of there's a lot of media attention about it at the moment because of the because of the tragedy that happened on Gary.”

Where the young woman was found and dingos may or may not have played a role in her death. Certainly there was evidence that there was post-mortem damage to her body from dingos which is normal animal behavior as traumatic as it is. But it's some questionable that dingos may well have played a role in her death and we don't know and we need to let that play out. But because of that there's been a lot of discussion about how much of a threat dingos play two humans in general. And I think it's interesting.

It's question I get asked a lot because there are so many dingos in Australia on the mainland and we hear nothing about attacks. You know attacks from dingos are extremely uncommon. dingos do not generally approach people and they do not generally pose a threat to people on the mainland. And that's because dingos are a shy animal. They would far prefer to just be as far away from people as they possibly can. Some of them have probably been experienced traps and shooting and stuff so they don't really have a reason to approach people so they don't generally do that.

So if you go out hunting in a natural landscape and you have dogs with you, they may come close to investigate the dogs or do investigate you if you're approaching a den site.

“I think that's no different from any other predator when they tend to be territorial.”

Or protective of their young or their home territory. But still instances of attacks on people are extremely uncommon. I mean, I think we could count that on our hands. The number of people that have died as a result of dingos, you know, since European colonization. However, on Garry, the situation is a bit different.

And that's because we have so many people visiting what is a very, very small area. So the whole island is 1600 square kilometers, which is not that big. I think it's like nine miles or something from tip to tip. So it's not very big. There's about 100 to 200 dingos on the island. And throughout a year, I think something like 400,000 to 800,000 people visiting.

So there's a lot of people on that island. And that means that the dingos are more habituated. They're more used to people. And they're more used to people giving them access to food. And so that is when it becomes more risky for the humans in that equation. Because you have a large predator. Often people don't respect them.

Like a large predator, they think it looks like a laboratory. Like human. I'll get a cute selfie with it. I'll like, I'll encourage it to come close to me with some food. And the dingos on guard are quite happy to come close and get food.

Because they know that that's where they can get a free meal. Right, for me. And then they might start behaving challengingly. So if they don't get food and they know their food around, then they might start getting mildly or nippy or just threatening,

threatening in a behavior that you don't want.

“And I think also because they're not scared of people.”

And people don't respect them as a predator. They put themselves into situations where they might be more vulnerable. And their children might be more vulnerable. So like leaving their kids unsupervised or out of harm, out of arms reach in an area where there's a large predator.

I think you wouldn't do that if you were, I think through yellowstone, for example, and you knew that there were wolves or bears or cougars. Like you're going to be a lot more protective of your children.

And I think part of the problem is that dingos are only 20 kilos.

I don't know how much that is in pounds, but they're 40 pounds, up to about 40 pounds. Yeah, so I mean, they're not a huge predator. And so I think people don't necessarily appreciate the damage that they could do to small people like children.

Right. And then, I guess most of the time on Garry's still, you have people moving around as groups, you know, because they're camping and they're hanging out with people. The risk is really only increased when you're alone,

or doing something that would amplify that prey drive when a predator. So like running or being on the beach and splashing around or something. And that's one of the reasons why the QPWS rangers have suggested that people who visit Garry follow a set of guidelines. Those guidelines include not being alone,

not going, definitely not going for runs on the beach as during Don and Dusk or carrying Dingo sticks with you, which is basically a long stick for if and Dingo gets too close to you, or is frightening you and making sure that you secure your food and supervise in children very closely.

“So I think if people follow those guidelines,”

you know, the risk to humans is very, very low. And I think on the mainland as well, we know Dingo is very, very rarely approach or hurt people. So we don't need to be frightened of them, but we do need to respect them as a large predator.

I mean, it's, you know, logic is really hard to figure out something. I know.

But the reality is, you know, when you talk about a small island,

it's one thing. So if you know you're going to an island that they're threatened by that, and people have been giving them food and they're less scared. It's like going, I think your example's perfect. When you talk about Yellowstone, people know if you've got food,

you've got to put it up, you don't have things there, because they're used to seeing you. But if I think if you go to the mainland, everything I read about it, because I, you know, I did a dive into, after her and about the girl that was on the beach and all that kind of stuff.

And there's very little documentation of bad things happening with Dingo. So just very little of it. And generally it's, you know, had to do with food for the most part, or they were feeling threatened. And guess what?

A cat will do that to you here in the US,

But how's that simple stuff?

Yeah. I mean, I mean, if you're looking at risk, like your former likely to be attacked in your own home by your own dog, then you are by a Dingo.

“I think it's just unfortunate that the incident on Garry that just happened,”

happened in the same week that I think we had four shark attacks in two days. So there was a lot of hysteria about predators in general. And that really, unfortunately, the Dingo's that were associated with the, the poor women's death have all been utilized as well. Well again, Dingo's just to have a really crappy PR company.

He's really, wouldn't he do? I probably shouldn't say this, but I think it's more like it's quite likely politically motivated. Like it wasn't evidence based that decision.

I mean, if they were, if they were basing that decision on evidence,

then they wouldn't have killed those animals, because they know that the population is so inbreed that removing ten animals could be very bad. And also that whilst some of the animals may have been at fault, it's unlikely all of them were.

And that removing an entire family group is likely to lead to more, like, territorial disputes between Dingo's and all those sorts of things and more disruption to the population. But there's a lot of concern, particularly because of the amount of media attention about dissuading visitors from accessing the island.

And with the Olympics coming up, I think there would be a lot of attention on trying to make sure that, you know, Queensland and Garry are safer visitors to come and follow along the beach. So unfortunately, a case of animals doing wild animal things and being punished for it, you know, for not very good reasons,

but... Generally bad things generally happen if money has to be involved. So when you're talking about tourism or anything else that has to do with money, you talk about the sheet farmers and has to do with money.

“All of a there, I mean, but you have to kind of learn to coexist,”

I guess it did in the days when figuring out what to do that. And I mean, going to the sheet farming thing, you know, there's done scientists looking, you know, Australia, but also globally, how do we better live with these predators? Like, how do we, how do we have livestock in similar areas

to where we have predators without just killing all the predators? And, you know, people are pretty, pretty good at problem solving and we've been doing some of these things for a very long period of time. But unfortunately, some of those things just haven't, like, really been picked up in Australia. And I think that goes back to, because we didn't have to,

because we only had one predator so we can easily kind of get rid of them or try to get rid of them. We didn't have to deal with the predators as well. But things like using livestock guardian dogs or even donkeys to protect the livestock, they're really effective.

We know they can protect livestock from wolves. They can make our dogs, exactly. For example, that, and now that you know they're doing, for your what dog it is up in Montana, the Grizzlies were starting to come and now they brought these,

some old farmer brought these dogs back, and now the dogs are living with a family. They have no issues with the Grizzlies now. Yep, yep. There's a study voyagers, Wolf's project.

“I think it's been, when they get it wrong.”

I think it's been a soda, but it might be Wisconsin. But it's in Voyager's National Park. And they set up some mariners to help protect cattle in this property that's, like, surrounded by the National Park. And they were having issues with the wolves entering the,

um, paddocks and, you know, taking down cows. And they've introduced these,

first they put good fences up to, like, a barrier fence.

And then they put the livestock guardian dogs in. And then they've had, like, no losses for, I think, several years since those dogs have gone. It's, I mean, they're really affected if you do them. I think one of the issues in Australia is the scale of the agricultural farming that we're doing. So we have sheep properties that are, like, thousands and thousands of,

hectares or acres. And some of them are not fence. It's literally a matter of putting the sheep in the area. Right. And coming back and mastering them later or putting the cattle in the area and coming back

and mastering them later. Um, and so they're not, they're effectively being unprotected completely. Now, cattle don't do pretty well with dingos. They, because they protect their livestock, but, but sheep don't, sheep are, sheep are good.

No. Not very resilient. Not very resilient to predators. So we really do need to protect them. And, and that's a problem because, you know, if we're farming at such high levels,

But first of all, the conditions are too harsh for them.

And second, you wouldn't be able to feed the dogs because there's so such large distances we're talking about. Um, so it's a real challenge finding something that will work.

“But I think that for most properties that are doing farming, they're not such large scale.”

There are tools that we can put in place that can keep livestock safe or safer than than they currently are. And that we can then have dingos living in natural places. And I don't necessarily mean accepting dingos living on your farm next to you. But like, national parks should be places where native animals,

or at least animals that are ecologically important to the biodiversity of Australia, should be allowed to be present.

And did you know that during that dingo fence that Australia spends over a million dollars a year

to keep that fence perfect? We know it's worth paying. Yeah. Yeah. Wouldn't it be a pleasure?

“And I think I think we may have just spent several, several millions,”

maybe in the 20s rebuilding the house of the fence. Or like, you know, judging it up because it was starting to fall down, you know? Like it's, there's been fires and floods and all that stuff. Like it's crazy.

You know, it's very funny when you see, you see photos of, like, parts of the fence, and you're like, that's not going to keep anything out. And I think then the government comes and spends, you know, as repairing a, you know, hundred kilometer section over or whatever. But I think that fence is, like, the fence doesn't really act as a barrier.

Like it's not like, it's not like the great wall of China or something. Dingos could go over it if they wanted to, if the incentive was high enough. But it's sort of a line in the sand for where we're going to tolerate dingos and where we're not. We're going to divide her. And like south of that fence, like on on the, on the New South Wales side of that fence,

you would have trappers working along with fence and trying to catch any dingos that come over or any dingos that are persisting.

And I mean, the number of dingos that are living in some of the, there'd be basically no dingos

living close to that fence anymore because we also bait put the poison down.

“So I think there's perception that we have many, many more dingos that we actually do as well.”

I mean, really dingos are only living in good populations inside national parks, or in areas that are very remote north of the fence, like cattle country, dingos are probably living more free, more, you know, on the small land. But there's not, you know, despite the fact that there probably are thousands of dingos. There's not hundreds of thousands of dingos, you know.

You're privileged if you go out in the bush and you see a dingo. Well, everything I looked at when I was looking at it with the numbers and nobody really knows. It's just an estimate in the estimate. It's such a wide range of numbers that nobody really even knows. It's crazy.

No, I mean, so they've done an estimate, for example, in Victoria. And that number is somewhere from, like, 1500 to 5,000 to animals. Yeah, that's all. Big crazy estimate. Um, but like, and I mean, that makes it sound like there's a lot of dingos out there.

But, and there may well be, but something that we're starting to appreciate more with our DNA study of them is that dingos are really challenged by in breeding. So, when dingos came to Australia, they would have only been there wouldn't have been very many of them. Right. Uh, and so there was a small foundation population, or populations, if more than one population came. Um, and then they started to increase, you know, if they spread across the country.

Um, but because of that small population, they like haven't reached high enough numbers yet to kind of recover from that challenge, like historically as a species. And then, in the last 200 years, we've done a really good job of killing them and suppressing them. And that has further exacerbated or made worse this ingredient challenge in certain areas. Yeah, what can I say? You know, and, and going back, I think I alluded to this a little bit, um, before about the hybridization.

So, a lot of people view hybridization is like negative. And I think generally it is, um, if something that we want to avoid, if humans are influencing it, we don't want that to happen. And we definitely don't want hybridization to be happening to the point that it's erasing, you know, a population that was unique or something like that.

that they might not have the current tools to do. So it's a way for them to like get new genetic material for evolution to act upon then.

And so, whilst hybridization has challenged in goes in the past, we, and we know that it has happened, even though it's not as common as we thought. It would appear that some of these dog genes that have gone into the population are then being like positively selected and retained by fingers. And that may well be because it's providing new genetic material, it's providing new diversity, so like new variation to overcome this in breeding. In breeding right.

That, that really they needed.

Um, and so it's kind of this double-edged sword of like, we know hybridization has happened and that's bad. But at the same time, hybridization may actually be helping Dingo's to hold on in places where they're being really, really suppressed by, you know,

“lethal control and stuff. So, and I think, you know, all of our deas about speciation and species are often predicated on the idea that animals can't reproduce together if they're different species.”

But that's quite an outdated idea that's wrong.

So, like for example, humans have the endothel DNA in us from our ancient ancestors breeding with the endothels. And we have retained and kept some of those genetic genes or alleles that we got from the endothels because they've been useful to us. The same thing happened with grizzly bears and polar bears in North America. And there was a gene exchange during the last, well, I say that allowed, I can't remember which way it was, one of them to adapt to the rapid change in climate. And they've retained their separate identities, but they still have shared DNA in some, you know, in some regions because of that ancient mixture.

And like more, more contemporarily, like jackrabbits and snowshoot hairs are breeding together. And that's benefiting the snowshoot hairs because there's not enough snow in some areas anymore. And being white in an area where there's no snow is very bad.

“So, they've actually gained the alleles for alternative winter pellage colors. So, like, I think it's like gray color.”

That provides them with the ability to, like, you know, keep going in areas where the climate is changing and there's not enough snow. So, like hybridization can be good. Right. And I think that something was, like, some complexity that needs to get added into this whole wild dog, didn't go thing, you know. Well, I think that a wild dog thing was a marketing program to say they're going to be vicious and horrible animals is what really what it was. I mean, I think you should try to protect a purity of the animal, but that was a marketing program in my opinion.

Yeah. Well, I didn't talk about it, but something that's super fascinating is that people were so concerned about the breeding between dingo's and dogs that Australia actually banned the importation of our stations or German shepherds into the country for something like 30 or 40 years. We're not allowed to have German shepherds, and they were strictly controlled because of the concern that German shepherds would breed with dingo's and create monster sheet killers. They were like media campaigns about the banning, like it was talked about in parliament.

It's fascinating and interesting, the level of concern that we had. If you look at in the bush, you can see dingo's or like look like dingo's. Like you don't see the dogs that you see in free ranging populations like in Morocco or India. You don't see dogs like that roaming around the bush. It's very, very uncommon to see that. Like you just see dingo's. Sometimes they have weird coat colors, like there might be black with patches of white all over them, or there might be brindles, so that like that browning color with black stripes or whatever.

But like if you painted them the typical yellow ginger color, you wouldn't see a difference. People just need to look past the colors sometimes. And appreciate that dingo's can come in different colors as well. They don't always have to be that ginger color.

“Yeah, that's fascinating. Okay, so anything else? I mean, we get talk for days. I'm sure. I think we could talk for days. They're so fascinating. Well, yeah, it's a long year.”

And you know, the advantage I have is, and of course, you do too, because you're talking to animal people all the time. I am too, so I've got all these other little things that little bits and pieces of different animals that I've talked to, you know, from your, your guys, your blue penguins down there across the board. I've talked to Tasmanian double people, every time. So yeah.

Well, they came from Asia. Okay. But like, like, million years ago, something like that, hundreds of thousands of years, million years ago. So I mean, the movement of animals from Asia into Australia is not unique to dingos. I guess the uniqueness is potentially human hands. So we think there's likely a role in humans moving dingos or the ancestor of dingos from some kind of people.

The ancestor of dingos from somewhere in Asia down through the islands to Australia.

“But what that relationship was is kind of less clear. Like, were they keeping dogs as pets? Were they keeping them as food items as many people in Asia used on this food? Like, or was it more, was it different?”

You know, could they have just had some that were companions more similar to the way indigenous Australians kept dingos where they would have companion animals, but they weren't necessarily breeding them themselves. They were letting them breed in the wild and then taking pups back. It's kind of unclear. And I think the other thing is that the people's in Asia thousands of years ago, they moved quite a lot of different animals around different islands.

But none of them were domesticated. It's like they moved like Russo deer around and there was also a particular monkey. I think they got moved around by people.

Not really sure why. Maybe you used to make them feel like home or something. Yeah. I don't know. So it's not really clear what role humans had with dingos they may or may not have had.

“And I think also the way we think about Australia as like the islands that it is today. I mean, 6,000 years ago Australia was joined to New Guinea and it was one giant landmass.”

And so it's quite likely that dingos didn't come directly to Australia, but they came to like that New Guinea part of the landmass and then traveled down into Australia.

New Guinea singing dog exactly there are there the dingos like closest relative they're basically like a like a extra population of dingos.

And they're so unique. All of them are so unique. They have very different vocalizations to domestic dogs. So like dingos and you're going to see those howl and yodal a lot more. I mean dogs can howl and yodal, but dingos have a more complex vocalization repertoire than dogs and they tend to not bark in the same way the 10 bark.

“You know, because one of the things that read is that they don't bark, but they do bark, they just don't bark that often and it's not that loud.”

Yeah, they don't bark that often and the bark is used in a different way. It is an alarm thing, but they won't just like my job. Yeah, even the ones that are kept in captivity, they don't just sit there in bark. Like so if I go to the sanctuary one of my favorite things is if I spend the night at the sanctuary waking up in the morning and them howling and they have like a chorus howl, well they'll all be howling. But when visitors come they don't bark. They howl if it's people that they are excited to see or if it's people they're not sure about those snuff.

So they'll kind of like blow, blow air out of their nose like chuffing and stuff, but they don't bark so much. But it can be a learned behavior. So if you have like a pet dog and then you have a pet dingo the dingo might learn to bark more because of association and you know modeling, but but they use their barking in a different way. Mostly you'll hear howling and some of my favorite experiences are like camping in in the bush and waking up to hear dingo is howling either in the night or during in the morning just magical.

So privilege to have heard that because not many people do in Australia hear that. Okay, so how do people find you are want to find out if they want to dig deeper into this thing what should they do anything that you would recommend. And by the way, anything you're going to tell me. I'm going to have you email to me and I'll put it in the description, but for people to listening if they want to find out more information get a whole to you. Find out anything what should they do top whatever you want to point me.

Well, you can find me on the UNSW website so you search like Dr. Kylie Canes that that will come up. I'll give you my email address, probably saying it will be difficult with like spelling and stuff. I also have a Facebook page called Dingo Genetics Research that I update spontaneously depending on how much time I have with research updates or things that are going on about Dingo that are cool.

So just Facebook mostly, and like I'm really happy to have emails and stuff from people just forgive me if I take a long time to respond sometimes.

I know how that work. Totally. Yeah. Exactly. Okay, so I've got my joke for him.

And by the way, I know everybody is listening.

“So as always, say, I'm the one that's given a joke today. Of course, I always try to talk to guests in, but if you want to be on the show and you want to tell a joke you've got kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews.”

Or you personally want to be on the show. If you email me at [email protected]. I will gladly, and I'm sure people listening would gladly love to hear somebody else tell a joke versus me, are the guests. So again, mcoilfreelpodcast.com. So my joke for you today, and everybody I know out there that's listening is cringing.

So why was the dingo today hiding in the shade when we were doing this interview? Oh, because this is mine. Oh, that's clear.

“The reason being is they didn't want to go out back in the sun.”

I told you. Oh, kidding. But that was my joke. It was a good one. I might actually tell my kids that one. They probably enjoyed that.

I can't even, my kids just look at me and sit there and tell me more jokes. Anyways, Kylie, thanks so much for being on this show.

“I love talking to somebody who has a similar name to mine too, which makes it more fun.”

You're just a wealth of information. You're doing great things. I really, really appreciate you for being on. Thank you for the opportunity.

It was been awesome. And then for everybody else's listening, as I always say,

like past the word on, follow, you know, rate, whatever all those things you do. But you know, the deal is is that the more people that listening listen, the more opportunities I have to bring on more guests, all another thing too. If you've got an idea for her to get for somebody to be on the show, again, you said email that's on there of course it's in the description too.

But most importantly for all you guys that are listening, you guys make this show. But from bottom my heart, thank you so much for listening for weath. That includes this episode for real with your host, Mark Kyle. For previous and future episodes for real,

listen via all major podcast streams. [Music]